Supporting Music Education, Artistic Practice & Research at the Royal Irish Academy of Music

Kevin O’Connell article in The Musical Times

Check out the latest edition of The Musical Times in the library. The Spring 2014 issue contains an article by RIAM composition teacher, Dr. Kevin O’Connell.

The article focuses on Alban Berg’s Orchestral pieces Op. 6, and challenges the assumption that they remain intractably complex, even 100 years after their composition. Noting the presence of clearly demarcated main and subsidiary themes throughout he writes: “This Ariadne’s thread … makes listening to op. 6 surprisingly straightforward, at any rate melodically. In plain language, there is always a tune to hang on.”